Crop Disease Pressure Low Despite Favorable Conditions

With many foggy and cold mornings during the 2024 growing season, Brandan Marshall with West Central FS says it was the perfect environment for diseases to pop up in corn and soybean fields. However, when looking at the fields in western Illinois, Marshall says the disease hasn’t been much of an issue, which could be the result of different hybrids farmers are using.

“We found some tar spot, but it’s at the bottom of the corn plant. There’s no gray leaf spot, there’s no rust and right now there is tar spot coming in; who cares? It’s so far along,” says Marshall. “So that’s another amazing thing- but there was a lot of fungicide put on, but we had a great environment for it. But I think the hybrids and then the way we’re farming now is changing a lot of that”

Marshall adds that farmers may find that some of the wind events may have caused some wind stress to their corn.